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STEP 2 Casting and carving the walls STEP 3 Making window and door openings Stone courses carved with knife, scriber Window spaces left blank Styrene V angle produces beveled edge Starter holes Frame built up to 1 scale foot thick Flat styrene glued to plywood base I started by gluing a piece of .040" styrene onto a scrap piece of 3 ⁄4 " plywood, then building up a form to the dimensions of each wall section on this base. I made sure that my forms were square to the plywood edges, since I would be using a machinist’s square to guide me as I carved masonry joints into the castings. I used inverted styrene angle strips as forms for the ends of the walls. This provided a 45-degree bevel on the edges of my castings so they would mate with the adjoining walls. I wanted my walls to be about one scale foot thick, so I made sure that the styrene forms were all this depth. Next, I coated the surfaces of the mold with petro- leum jelly as a mold release, and mixed up a batch of Hydrocal to the consistency of pancake batter. I poured this mixture into the mold, letting a little of it overflow. Before the Hydrocal set up, I used a large putty knife to scrape off the excess to make a flat surface. Since I would be carving the cut stones and milling out door and window openings, I used Hydrocal instead of casting plaster because Hydrocal is much harder. I found that the extra hardness didn’t present a problem when I carved the stone work. I left the casting in the mold when carving the mortar lines so the pressure wouldn’t crack the castings, especially at the thin, tapered ends. I used a pencil to mark horizontal lines for the stone courses and carved them in using a scribing tool and the point of a hobby knife. I measured carefully so the lines on all the walls would match at the corners when assembled. Finally, I scribed the vertical lines. All of this scribing and carving seemed daunting at first, but I took my time and found that with some good music to entertain me and a few rest breaks, it wasn’t as tedious as I’d feared. The end wall shown in the photo above was my first attempt at scribing; fortunately, my skill improved on the other walls. 46 Model Railroader • www.ModelRailroader.com Milling bit in motor tool I used a hardened cylindrical milling bit in my motor tool to enlarge the openings to within about 1 ⁄16 " from the edges. I then used my a hobby knife to carefully carve out the remaining plaster. I worked carefully during this step, continually checking the size of the openings against my styrene door and window castings. These would have to fit perfectly, since they would be inset in the walls with no casing on the outside to hide gaps or slips of the knife. Finally, I continued the scribed mortar lines around the corners to the inside of the openings, making the openings look as if they were surrounded by entire stones. You can see the results in the next photo. I left blank areas for the door and windows as I scribed the stones. Then, after carefully removing the casting from the mold, I drilled holes in these areas so I could mill them out to size. Openings milled to within 1 ⁄16 " of edge